If your leaguemate has been OTC for more than 6 hours, it's well within your rights to send them a singing telegram reminder...

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter:

• A shakeup in the Cleveland backfield is imminent
• How to get your fantasy question answered on air
• Who is the Ravens WR2?
• Professor Pete: how to get unique in best ball drafts
• Easy Rider: 2 QBs who have an easy early season schedule
   
• It’s 8/8. Take it away, Peter Overzet…

RB Kareem Hunt has requested a trade from the Cleveland Browns as part of his angling for a contract extension.

The 27-year-old is in the final year of his current $12 million deal and initially told the team he will not participate in practices until he gets an extension. He did end up returning to practice on Sunday, but I don't think we're done with this saga yet. 

It's a fascinating development for fantasy and something we should be looking to exploit in drafts right now.

We know Nick Chubb is the lead back in this offense and that the Browns like to utilize multiple rushers in one of the most ground-heavy attacks in the league. We also know that they spent a 4th round pick on a RB (Jerome Ford) as a potential hedge on this very situation occurring.

Even with Hunt returning to practice, there's enough smoke here that makes me think a shakeup in this backfield is imminent. 

I had been heavily targeting one of Hunt or D'Ernest Johnson in drafts knowing there were rumors that either could be traded, but PFF's Dwain McFarland shared a potential galaxy brain cheat code idea that I hadn't thought of...taking both in drafts.

In general, I am not a fan of handcuffing my RBs and sacrificing upside, but as Dwain highlights, this is the rare occasion where you can massively benefit in two places from one event.

1) If Hunt, who is currently an 8th round pick on Underdog, is traded(or cut, which is being reported as a possibility) it's likely he would land in a situation that would increase his fantasy value.

He'd immediately be the lead back on teams like the Dolphins, Texans, or Falcons and would also be a fantasy force in offenses like the Bills, Chiefs, or Niners that have somewhat open depth charts. 

2) As for Johnson, he's been basically free in drafts and would make a big time ADP jump if Hunt were moved. Johnson has sneakily been the better rusher than Hunt the past couple of seasons and actually had the highest PFF rushing grade of any RB last year. Especially with uncertainty at the QB position, the RB2 in this offense will be firmly on the fantasy radar.

One of the best parts of drafting early (and often) via best ball contests like the ones we've been discussing all summer is getting to take advantage of unique opportunities like this that won't be available for long. 

Join us in the Underdog lobby–new users get a $100 deposit match with promo code LIFE–and start grabbing these Browns backs before their ADPs rise.

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🔮 Who is the Ravens WR2? It's been up for debate all offseason, but one guy is emerging.

🏅 The Training Camp All Star team. A good list of the buzziest guys who are moving up draft boards.

🎤 The Hurts & AJ Brown connection is real. Both on and off the field. 

💀 Beware of the RB Dead Zone. Your favorite back going in Rounds 5-8 will be sharing carries.

🏴‍☠️ Interesting developments with the Bucs WRs. Chris Godwin is back at practice, but now another WR is hurt.

🤠 The Texans RB1. And it's not even close, sorry Marlon Mack. 

➕ The Niners add a WR. Hadn't heard that name in awhile. 

Professor Pete is back to teach you how to draft unique squads in best ball tournaments...

Imagine this...you make it to the Week 17 finals in an Underdog tournament.

Sure, you're hungover because it’s New Year’s Day, but your beautiful best ball team will be competing for millions of dollars today.

You start tabbing through the other 469 teams in the finals to scope out your competition and then come to the frustrating realization that everyone has the same overlapping players as you.

That isn’t some crazy hypothetical, that’s very likely to happen to the finalists. In best ball, there’s a natural selection bias to the teams that advance to the finals. It makes sense that the best teams are going to share a lot of similar league winners. 

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can do to ensure we have a unique squad if we are lucky enough to make it to the dance.

🦄 Why is a unique team important? When we previously discussed the importance of stacking and correlation in these tournaments, we referenced some principles from DFS that we could apply to our best ball drafting.

Because the Week 17 finals groupings in tournaments like Best Ball Mania III and The Puppy 3 feature hundreds of teams, we can reverse engineer strategy through the lens of a small-field DFS tournament.

In these environments, having a unique squad is paramount to success. Doing so gives us two ways to win:

1) When our lesser owned, unique players hit 
2) When “the chalk” (aka the popular picks) fails

📺 BONUS: I expand on this concept and the benefits of being a contrarian fantasy player in this video.

In last year’s Best Ball Mania II final, 66% of the teams in the finals had Mark Andrews and 46% had Cooper Kupp:

This isn’t an issue when you’re trying to advance to the playoffs, but becomes a very important consideration when trying to beat 469 other teams in Week 17.

🏆 Example: Last year’s champ Liam Murphy was one of the only teams who had Noah Fant at TE. Even though Andrews had been dominant and advanced many teams to the finals, you’d actually prefer to not have him. 

I know that seems weird, but to reiterate, Liam had two ways to win–his unique TE pick (Fant) does better than Andrews or Andrews fails…which is exactly what happened in Week 17 with Andrews only scoring 12.5 points and Fant putting up 18.2. 

So with that said, here are 4 ways you can get unique while drafting…

📌 Uniqueness Tip #1: Roster Construction

One way we can get unique is by employing draft structures that are underutilized by the field relative to other more popular strategies like Anchor RB. For example, only 2.1% of teams (3,309) utilized Zero RB last year.

And to extend it further, we can layer a couple of these optimal strategies on top of each other to create an even more unique build. For example, Zero RB + Elite TE + 2 QBs before Round 13 was utilized by only 0.48% of the field last year (h/t Rotoviz’s Michael Dubner):

🚧 By utilizing different structures, you are naturally going to end up with different combinations of players than the field. 

📌 Uniqueness Tip #2: End of Drafts

One of the easiest ways to differentiate our rosters is with our late round picks. Best Ball has a unique dynamic where 216 players get drafted in each draft and pretty much all players with a Top 200 ADP are selected in 100% of drafts. 

If we can find the one super late round sleeper that isn't drafted on every roster, our teams will have a huge advantage. 

For example, last year Darrel Williams and Elijah Mitchell were both massive hits at RB in the last few rounds. Both contributed nearly equal amounts of points to starting best ball rosters, but Williams was drafted on 28% of rosters, while Mitchell was drafted in just 5.5% of leagues:

⛏️ Because all of the players after pick 150 have a low probability of hitting, we should be willing to dig deep into the ADP bin to find the players who aren’t always being drafted.  

📌 Uniqueness Tip #3: Value Hound

Because the ADP on Underdog is super efficient and there’s a natural anchoring bias to using ADP when we draft, many players will routinely be selected in the same pockets of drafts. 

Last year Christian McCaffrey was frequently paired with Justin Jefferson and George Kittle. Not because people were purposefully stacking them, but because their ADPs were correlated with McCaffrey at the 1.01 and Jefferson and Kittle at the 2-3 turn. 

We can see here from Rotoviz's Underdog Advance Rate Explorer that over 25% of all CMC teams had Jefferson and 16% had Kittle. 4.4% of all CMC teams had both Jefferson and Kittle:

We want to avoid that as much as possible. 

🐶 When players slip significantly past their ADP, it represents an opportunity for you to become a value hound and get a combination of players that most other drafters won’t have access to.

📌 Uniqueness Tip #4: Galaxy Brain Combos

We can get unique by grabbing values, but we can also get unique by reaching for players ahead of ADP. This is a dicier proposition because you are thumbing your nose at an efficient market, but I don’t think it’s that risky to execute in the first few rounds of drafts. 

There’s a clear Top 5 picks in 2022 drafts, but after Ja’Marr Chase is off the board I think you could argue the next 25 picks or so are relatively flat from both a talent and projected points standpoint. 

If that thesis is true, we can mess around with some unique combos that won’t be as duplicated by the field.

For example, on the team I drafted with Erik Beimfohr that finished 8th in BBM2 last year, we “reached” for Davante Adams at 1.03 knowing that there wouldn’t be a lot of teams who had Adams (late Round 1 ADP) paired with both Keenan Allen and CeeDee Lamb (late Round 2, early Round 3 ADP). 

In fact, there were only 10 total rosters in the entire field who had our same Adams-Allen-Lamb start. To put it in perspective, there were 566 rosters who had that CMC-Jefferson-Kittle start. 

🏆 Example: In 2022 drafts, two players I love are Travis Kelce and Tee Higgins. If you always draft off ADP, you'll never get that combo because Kelce goes at the 1/2 turn and Higgins goes at the 2/3 turn. Drafting Kelce and Higgins at the 1/2 turn would be an example of smartly reaching ahead of ADP to get a combo that the field isn't naturally funneled to. 

⚡ The benefit of having a unique pairing far outweighs the small amount of projected points you are giving up. 

I know a lot of this might feel too galaxy brain, but if you can smartly apply some of these concepts in your drafts–and combine them with the other lessons we’ve discussed throughout the Summer School series–you’ll have a big edge on the competition.

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What players are likely to get off to a fast start and secure our fantasy team some early Ws? Today Sam Wallace shares two QBs who have an easy schedule right out of the gate...

🚀 Matt Ryan (Redraft ADP: QB20)

Since 2016, QB Matt Ryan is No. 1 in passing yards and No. 5 in passing TDs. While that came with a different team and elite offensive playmakers, Ryan has something left to prove. He will benefit from a top-10 offensive line per PFF.

Ryan fell off dramatically in 2021 but much can be attributed to losing No. 1 WR Calvin Ridley. Without Ridley, Ryan experienced a per/game decrease of:

• 37% fantasy points
• 24% passing attempts
• 17% passing yards
• 65% passing TDs

WR Michael Pittman provides a true WR1 for Ryan. Even WR Parris Campbell is generating headlines (again). Combine that with RB Jonathan Taylor, and this offense has ample firepower to help Ryan return to fantasy relevance.

The Colts have the No. 3 easiest strength of schedule according to Sharp Football Analysis. Their first three opponents are the Texans, Jaguars, and Chiefs. The first two games are certainly winnable while any matchup with Kansas City has the potential to turn into a shootout.

According to the Fantasy Life ADP Tool, his QB20 price makes him an intriguing steaming option to start your season.

🚀 Jared Goff (Redraft ADP: QB26)

Over the last 5 years, Goff is QB5 in passing yards. Much of that came during his tenure with Sean McVay and the Rams, but you still need to be a relatively talented QB to post that type of production.

The Lions have the No. 5 easiest strength of schedule according to Sharp Football Analysis. They begin their season against the Eagles, Commanders, and Vikings, who all have beatable defenses.

Courtesy of PFF, the Lions have the No. 3 offensive line heading into 2022. Goff also has excellent weapons around him.

• RB D’Andre Swift
• WR Amon-Ra St. Brown
• WR DJ Chark
• TE TJ Hockenson

That’s a formidable foursome. First-round rookie wideout Jameson Williams is expected to miss a chunk of the season as he recovers from a torn ACL but he’ll be highly involved once he’s back.

According to the Fantasy Life ADP Tool, he’s going in the QB3 range (QB26) and has more offensive talent around him than anyone else going that late.

Analyst take: Romeo Doubs must be special. Rodgers never talks about rookies!

My take: Rodgers is just nicer now that he regularly does drugs

— Griff (@Mullet_Lebron) 
Aug 5, 2022